Top 5 Ways of Cooking with Parsley

There are several ways of using parsley but here are the top 5 ways of cooking with parsley. Parsley is a humble ingredient, yet it is very versatile. It is inexpensive, easy to grow in your garden or a container pot. An antioxidant, it is rich in Vitamin A, K and C. In other words, it is easy on the budget, and very good for your health.

Many recipes call for parsley as a garnish, where you sprinkle a few chopped parsley. This results in leftover parsley that often go to waste. Here are the top 5 ways of cooking with parsley, that will ensure you not a single parsley stem or leaf will go to waste.

Parsley Pesto Sauce
Ingredients:
(2) tbsp Fresh Parsley,
(2) tbsp Pine nuts,
(1) tbsp Olive Oil,
(4) tbsp Parmesan cheese
Put fresh parsley, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese in blender to make a parsley pesto sauce that can be used with your pasta. It can also be used on a pizza, as a sandwich dressing, or a salad dressing.

Sauteed Parsley

This is a simple little recipe where you sautee chopped onions, chopped parsley and curry leaves together. Add black pepper powder, salt and lemon Juice. Serve warm as a side dish or cold as a salad. The whole process takes less than 15 minutes.

Parsley Cilantro Chutney
Ingredients:
2 bunches Parsley, Cilantro or mixture
Juice from 1/2 lemon
5 cloves garlic
1/2 onion
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Blend the above together to make a chutney.
Add some yogurt and you have a dip.
Note: Cilantro is a good parsley substitute. There is always the issue of parsley versus cilantro. Which herb to use for what dishes. For a chutney, cilantro does well as a parsley substitute. However, it is not a good substitute for sauteed parsley dishes, because cilantro does not have the robust fibrous crunchy texture of parsley.

Lemon Parsley Rice
This is one of my favorite way of serving rice. Cook rice the usual way. Once it is done, add some butter, chopped parsley and lemon juice. Stir together. You have just made a very simple rice dish into something delightful.

Lemon Parsley Potato
This dish uses exactly the same concept as Lemon Parsley Rice. Steam peeled potatoes until tender. Add lemon juice and finely chopped parsley and serve. The photo below shows very little parsley. I myself would add a lot more parsley.

Parsley Green Smoothies
One last minute addition, which should now add up to the 6th way of using parsley. It turned out that Parsley is one of the more popular ingredients in making a green smoothie.

Check out our Kiwi Parsley Mint Smoothie Recipe.
Try out different parsley smoothie variations such as:
Parsley Cucumber Smoothie
Parsley Pineapple Smoothie
Parsley Grape Lemon Smoothie
Parsley Apple Pear Smoothie